Secrets and Lies
by chibiduo
Summary: Anastacia Angelique Morrow was named for her fathers first love, a woman long-dead whose life is shrouded in mystery. And the key to unlocking it comes in the form of a letter...
1. Default Chapter

**Secrets and Lies **

Prologue 

I always used to dream about being lost in the woods. I was having difficulty walking over the rugged earth trying to keep up with my older sister Carrigan. She looked back at me every now and then to make sure I was still there, I suppose. But there were people in front of her and she was trying to keep up with them. And then there was a noise. And the boy said something teasing like, "That's a bear. It's going to come and eat all you little girls." 

For some reason I was fascinated by this dream. It seemed too real for merely a dream. I'd often wondered if it had actually happened. But at no time in my life could I think of a time for me and Carrigan to possibly have become lost in the woods. We lived in the suburbs, and we had no family in rural areas, and my parents weren't the sort to vacation in places like that, either. 

I asked Carrigan about it once and she said she didn't know what I was talking about. One of life's mysteries, I guess. 

I loved mysteries. I loved figuring out how things worked, how people worked, how things came to be. Instead of watching MTV and WB like other girls my age I watched the History Channel and Court TV. _History's Mysteries_ and _I, Detective_ were my favorites. That made me weird, I guess. Not that I cared. Really. 

There were a million and one mysteries in my house, for instance. Carrigan was only my half-sister, and we weren't allowed to ask about her mother. Well, I should say 'weren't allowed.' If either of us did, my parents changed the subject. Why, I had no idea. Why my mother didn't like to be touched and I don't remember her ever hugging me; that was another mystery. And above all, where my name came from. 

Anastacia Angelique Morrow. Or just "Anastacia Angelique." I loved my name. I had tried in vain to get everyone at school to call me Anastacia, but it was Stacey my parents had dubbed me with and it was Stacey I was stuck with. But Stacey suited me better. Anastacia Angelique was such a lovely name and it was wasted on an ordinary girl like me. 

My sister Carrigan however was all but ordinary. She was beautiful. Her face had diminutive features and large dark green eyes which were complimented by her bronze skin. But it was her hair that really got her noticed. In the summer it appeared a fiery array of orange and red, and in winter it became a ruby so deep it almost appeared black in low light. 

I was my father's daughter. The same light brown hair, the same light green eyes, and the same complexion that was just dark enough not to freckle. However I had my mother's build and similar facial features. I was pretty enough, but no beauty like Carrigan. Not that I minded. 

I had that dream again. The one where I was walking in the woods with Carrigan and two other people. I was sure there were at least two others, but I doubted there were more. The dream always made me feel sad. Like childhood was getting farther and farther away, escaping me more every day. 

I sat upright. _It's my birthday. I'm twelve._

I thought so anyway. I glanced at the clock. Twelve-thirty-two. Yep. I was twelve. This was a birthday I'd been looking forward to for a long time. This was the birthday I was officially in my teens. Since eleven is still a little girl's age. And I was a little girl no longer. 

I wanted so badly to wake Carrigan and tell her, but she'd just tell me I was being an idiot, that it was nothing to get so excited over, and to go back to sleep. I wondered if I would be like that when I was fifteen. Somehow I doubted it. 

I layed back down. There was no reason to stay awake. But I was too excited to sleep. After tossing and turning for a bit I glanced again at the clock. Twelve-forty-five. I sighed. I was never going back to sleep. 

I stood and walked to the dresser, intending to grab the book I was currently reading and head out to the living room so I wouldn't bother Carrigan. I didn't really need to worry. Carrigan slept like the dead. The only thing that ever seemed to wake her up was the light. _She's a vampire,_ I mused. I smiled at the thought. 

I'd just grabbed my book when something caught my eye. The edge of a picture sticking out of one of Carrigan's keepsake boxes. She had about four of them stacked up on the dresser. 

I knew I shouldn't look because that would be like going through her things and she did not like people going through her things, but curiosity got the better of me. If I were a cat I'd be long dead, me and all my nine lives. 

Stealing a quick glance at Carrigan I gently opened the box and took the picture out, trying to make out the details in the dim light. My eyes widened in surprise. The girl in the picture looked so much like Carrigan, but she was…_different._ It wasn't that old of a photo, but it had been done in sepia tones. The girl was young, no older than Carrigan was now. The same eyes, similar face, same build, and hair that looked a few shades lighter than Carrigan's. 

_Could it be…_

I turned the picture over to look for a name. And there was one in the right hand corner. 

_Anastacia Angelique Roberts 1982._

"What…" 

It was Carrigan's mother. It had to be. It looked too much like her to be anyone else. But Anastacia Angelique? Was that her name? Was I named after her? But that didn't make any sense… 

I quickly put the picture back and went to the living room, turned the light on, and sat with my book open. But I didn't read a word. Again and again my mind came back to the picture with my name on the back. 


	2. Chapter One

**Chapter One**

My mother always woke promptly at 5:30 every morning. Whether it was during the week, weekends, or even during the summer. This morning was no different. I heard the shower in the master bedroom go on, and five minutes later go off. Then ten minutes after that my mother emerged fully dressed, her makeup already in place. 

"Why are you up already, Stacey?" she asked when she saw me. 

I shrugged. "Couldn't sleep." 

"Happy birthday." And she went into the kitchen. At least she'd remembered this year. 

Her name was Megan and she'd been quite pretty in her youth. She had fine and delicate features, with pretty light blue eyes and medium blond hair to her shoulders which nowadays she always had in some sort of up-do. She was a very prim and proper sort of person which made me wonder what in the world had ever attracted my father to her. He was anything but. 

I was my father's daughter. We had a lot in common and I always went to him with the problems I didn't go to Carrigan for. Mom and I had never been very close. We didn't agree on much. 

If she was just a little cold to me she was pure ice to Carrigan. The two never really acknowledged each other and barely ever even spoke. 

"Since you're up, Stacey, go wake your sister," she called from the kitchen. 

I stifled a groan. It wasn't fun to be the one who had to wake Carrigan up. 

The best way to wake her up had always been to merely turn the light on, so that's what I did. And she turned and hid her head under her pillow. 

"Come on, Carrigan," I whined. "Don't make this difficult." 

"Go to hell." 

Any normal person would be offended, but that was something she told me at least ten times a day so it kind of lost any insulting value it might have originally contained. 

I smiled slightly and opened to the top drawer of her dresser. After rummaging around for a few minutes I found what I was looking for. "What's this?" I said dramatically raising it above my head, then bringing back down to open it. "Is this _Carrigan's_ diary?" I flipped through the pages. "You did _what_ in _whose_ car?" 

A pillow whacked me in the face. She marched over and took it from me. "Liar. It doesn't say that anywhere in there." 

"I just wanted your attention," I said in an innocent tone. 

"Well I'm awake _now_. Happy? Why are you up so goddamn early?" 

For the past few months she'd made a habit of using at least one curse word ever time she spoke (when she wasn't around Mom and Dad). Did every teenager go through a stupid phase like this? I hoped I wouldn't. It made her sound like an idiot, I thought. 

"I had that dream again." 

She opened her closet and pulled out a couple things to wear. "That thing in the woods?" she asked as she started to change. 

Carrigan always took showers at night. She didn't like using a blowdrier or going to school with wet hair. 

I nodded, then realized her back was turned and she couldn't see me. I did that a lot. "Yeah. This time I saw the sky. It was orange." 

"Only you." 

She finished dressing and proceeded to brush her hair. I watched her. She had beautiful hair and she just yanked the brush through it, pulling out a whole lot more strands than she would if she'd just take her time with it. _I'll never understand her._

I coughed. "Don't you have something to say to me, oh wonderful and beautiful older sister of mine." 

"Oh," she paused her brushing. "Happy birthday, Stacey. So, does being twelve feel any different than eleven." 

I shook my head. 

"It never does." She pulled her hair back with a clip and started with her makeup. She didn't wear much, just some lipstick and eyeliner, though she really didn't need it. "God, I am so happy this is the last week of school. It just seems like this year has gone on forever. I'm going to be so glad when I'm not a freshman anymore." 

"Is it really that bad?" I asked. 

"No. I'm just exaggerating. Like I always do. Since I'm such an ungrateful brat. You know." 

"Did Mom tell you that?" 

She ignored me. 

I sat on my bed, contemplating if I should tell her I'd seen the picture. "Car—" I began, but she stood. 

"Come with me to eat. I don't want to sit there and have your mother glare at me by myself."

* * *

I never understood Mom. Carrigan was three when I was born and Mom and Dad got married. It seemed to me she would've treated Carrigan like she was her own child, and not some orphan that had wandered in off the street. 

We finished eating and Carrigan left for school and I had half and hour to kill before I had to leave. 

"Mom," I said, as she did the dishes. "How did you and Dad meet?" A seemingly innocent question. 

"Why do you ask?" 

I shrugged, even though her back was to me. She was doing dishes, you know. "I don't know how you met, and it seems like a story every child hears at least once in their life." 

"I was a teenager going through life with no purpose and doing the stupid things teenagers do, and I met him and became pregnant, and then I had a purpose." 

That was all she said. 

A very odd answer to a seemingly innocent question. 

I got dressed and walked to the bus stop where I stood for five-fifteen minutes not talking to anyone. I didn't have many friends. Any really. I think I frightened people. 

Then the bus drove up. Late again. And off I went to school. 

School was neither a place of learning or a place of socialization for me. It was a place to zone out for six hours. By the age of twelve I had mastered the art of looking like I was paying attention when my mind was a million miles away. School bored me. What I didn't learn in class I learned reading textbooks and that kept me at a B average. And seven hours after I left home I was back in my bedroom reading. I loved to read. I also really like to go online but the computer was downstairs and I didn't want to be around Mom. We'd never…we'd just never been close. She wasn't close to anyone. 

Dad was a teacher. He was a professor at the local community college and taught literary arts. I got my love of reading from him. He wrote a lot of poetry and short stories which he'd let me seen a few of. I liked his stories a lot. They were weird and sort of haunting. My favorite was about these two kids who found ruins of an old city that had been flooded. That became their secret place and as they grew up the ruins decayed more. And finally, when the two had died the city crumbled to the ground, like it had become a part of them. A bad summary, but my father had worded it beautifully. Dad wrote a lot of things that made me think. And I didn't always like that. 

Once I'd asked him if he was ever going to attempt to publish his writing and he shook his head. "These are my secrets," he explained. "My inside world. I wouldn't want to share them with anyone outside of you and Carrigan." 

That had made me happy. 

Reading began to bore me so I decided to brave myself to my mother's presence. I found her sitting at the kitchen table flipping through clothes magazines. 

I took the seat across from her, sliding my legs under the table. "Hi, Mom," I said. 

She glanced up and then back to her magazine. "You're father's bringing home a cake." 

Oh, yeah. I'd forgotten about my birthday. And I'd been so excited about it yesterday, too. But having seen that picture I suddenly wanted nothing more than to ask about Anastacia Angelique Roberts. Should I chance it? I couldn't decide. 

"Mom?" 

"Yes, dear." 

"Did you ever…_know_ Carrigan's mother." 

She dropped her magazine and stared at me. "What brought this on?" 

I shrugged. "I'm just curious." 

"That curiosity might get you in trouble one day, Stacey. _Get rid of it."_

And that was all she said about _that_.

* * *

Thankfully, Dad chose that time to come home and I ran to the door to greet him. "Daddy!" I screamed and hugged him, nearly knocking the cake out of his hands. It was something I was getting too old for, but I didn't care, and neither did he. 

"What kind of cake did you get me?" I made a face. "It's not a girly pink one with flowers and hearts on it again, is it?" I'd made a big deal about my mom's taste in cakes my past two birthdays, I'd been hoping they'd get the message. 

Walking towards the kitchen, he shook his head, a wry smile playing on his lips. "Not this year. It's _Pokemon_. Is that non-girly enough for you." 

I shrugged and gave an exaggerated sigh. "I guess that's good enough." 

"I'm not getting you a cake with blood and gore and decapitated body parts all over it. You're mother would freak." 

I smiled. "I know. For my sixteenth birthday, maybe?" 

"You're twenty-first, maybe?" 

"Daddy! That's nine years away!" 

He smiled at me and set the cake on the kitchen in front of Mom. "And maybe you'll forget about it by then." 

I crossed my arms across my chest. "Not very likely." 

"Is Carrigan home yet?" 

I shook my head and went over to get a look at my cake, hoping he was joking about it being _Pokemon_. He wasn't. Dad had such a weird sense of humor. _Pokemon_ was definitely non-girly, but it was so little kiddish. And a little kid I was not. "She's never home before eight anymore. And I don't know where she goes." Not exactly the truth, but… 

My mother stepped into the kitchen, taking the cake and placing it into a spot she'd cleared in the fridge. I hadn't even noticed she'd left. 

"You'd better talk to that girl, Reed, or she's going to get herself into a lot of trouble one day. And you _know_ I know what I'm talking about." 

_I_ didn't. I hated being left in the dark. 

Dad sighed. "Yes, Megan, I'll talk to her." 

"I want you to do more than talk, Reed! Make her realize the consequences of her actions. If not, she's going to wind up being just like Anne! And God knows one of her in a thousand years was more than enough." 

Dad stared at her not saying anything. I could feel the tension building up. 

Anne… Anastacia, perhaps? I'd never heard either of them mention her by name before. Maybe Mom didn't notice I was there? 

I looked at the two of them. "Can we wait for Carrigan to get home before we do the cake and presents thing?" 

That broke it. They both nodded. "Yeah, sure honey," Dad told me.

* * *

I hurried back to my room. My safe haven from the tension downstairs. I hated tension. One of the many reasons I was glad me and Carrigan never fought. Sharing a room with her would be absolutely unbearable. 

Around 6:30 I heard the front door open and I ran downstairs to greet her. 

Her hair was disheveled and she definitely didn't look happy. Glancing towards me, she dropped her book bag next to the couch and forced a smile in my direction. 

I smiled. I'd ask her what was wrong later. "Cake and presents." 

Nodding, she brushed passed me into the kitchen and settled herself into one of the chairs. I'd always admired the way she could slouch and still look completely elegant and classy. 

"I'll get Mom and Dad," I told her quickly and rushed off to get them. 

I still loved blowing out candles and opening presents. That was one little kid quirk I didn't mind carrying into adulthood. 

Dad lit the thirteen candles—we always added and extra one for good luck—and they sang to me and I blew them out, making the wish that one day I would understand everything that seemed so adult to me now. Was that a stupid wish? I was sure Carrigan would think so. 


	3. Chapter Two

Authors Note: 

This chapter starts moving everything kind of fast. I'm not sure if it works well. CC would be _greatly_ appreciated.

* * *

**Chapter Two**

Carrigan had always been in trouble for one thing or another ever since I could remember. When we were little she used to steal things from Mom; her makeup, clothes, nail polish; and food from the kitchen. She also got into trouble at school a lot. Talking back to teachers, going to places she wasn't supposed to, things like that. But ever since she started high school that all stopped. Now she was a saint at school and was never home. She went out with an endless stream of boys, coming home from each date looking more miserable than she had the last. She didn't explain and I didn't ask. That's how things worked in our house. 

"Do you remember your mother?" I asked her nonchalantly as we got ready for bed that night. 

"Why?" she said icily, changing into an oversized t-shirt. 

I shrugged, sitting on my bed, not wanting her to know how badly I wanted to know about her mother. "I think it's sad that you never really knew her. I just hoped you have some memories of her." 

She stared at me a moment. "You're weird, Stacey." She sighed. "Yeah, I remember her a little bit." 

"What was she like?" 

"She was," she paused, taking a seat on her own bed, trying to find the right words. "She wasn't like anybody else. I remember she was always smiling, but it wasn't a real smile. It wasn't from happiness. It was like everything amused her." She broke off. "That's all I really remember. I remember our house; our yard, really. It was big and she never mowed it so it was like a jungle. She used to call it that. And she'd chase me through the weeds. She loved the backyard. And I remember her hair." 

"Do you miss her?" 

"Of course I do. She was my mother." She was looking at me as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. And maybe it was. 

But if my mother suddenly died tomorrow, I wasn't all that sure that I would miss her. 

That was the end of that conversation. Carrigan turned off the light without another word and said a haughty "'night," and that was that. 

I layed down, my eyes staring at the ceiling, my mind still on a beautiful woman with my name. _How did she die?_ The question I was scared to ask.

* * *

The rest of the week was uneventful. Carrigan finished her exams, and I went through my last week of sixth grade, and it was summer vacation at last. Two and a half months free to lie around the house and do nothing. As long as my mother didn't sign me up for another stupid day camp. I think I'd complained about it enough the year before for my father to argue with her on my behalf. 

It also gave me an opportunity to wander around the house looking for anything that would tell me something about Anastacia Angelique Roberts. I hadn't dared yet to snoop around my parents bedroom, which was where there were sure to be _something,_ since my mother was always home. But I vowed the next time she went to the store that would be my top priority. 

Summer also found Carrigan to be a constant absence from our house. I was sure she was with one of her many boyfriends. She, too, had no friends. I'd wondered more than once if we were both cursed. 

"Talk to her, Reed, or send her away!" I heard my mother scream at my father, one night after Carrigan had broken her curfew. 

"I will not send her away!" he yelled back. "She's my daughter and she always will be." 

"And I am your wife! And I will not deal with that under my roof! You talk to her and make her behave." 

I didn't hear anything after that. What was it they thought Carrigan was doing? I had an idea, but I didn't think Carrigan would. I remembered hearing one of my fathers friends tell him once, "A girl that beautiful that young is heading for trouble." What did that mean? Just because she was pretty she couldn't control herself? I didn't like thinking about it. Any of it. 

I heard the front door open late that night. I glanced at the clock. Two-forty-one. _Oh, you are in trouble,_ I thought. 

And that was when Mom and Dad began to yell. I didn't pay much attention to that. I focused my eyes on the ceiling and concentrated on finding patterns in the paint, which was getting harder and harder to do as their voices got louder and louder. Finally it ended in a "you're grounded for a month!" and I heard her stomping up the stairs. I didn't bother pretending to be asleep. 

She pushed the door open, slamming and locking it behind her, then threw herself on her bed and began to cry. 

"Carrigan," I began gently. 

"Shut up! I don't' wanna hear it! Not from then, and especially not from you!" 

I looked down and started chewing on my finger, trying to figure out how to approach her. "I just wanted to ask you what you do when you're out all the time. Do you do bad things like they think you do?" 

She calmed down and stared out the window. "Megan thinks I'm a whore and I do drugs. And I think she's got Dad convinced." 

_Whore._ I wasn't sure what that meant but I could tell it definitely wasn't a good thing. The drugs though… _"Do you?"_ I asked. 

"No," she said in a voice so soft, I almost couldn't hear her. 

"Then what do you do?" I said in the most non-accusing tone I could manage. 

"I hang around them. Sometimes they kiss me or touch me, but nothing else. They're all determined to be the first to do it with me." 

"Sex?" I actually managed to say the word without giggling. I was still such a little kid. 

"Yeah. Sex. And tonight they almost did. They held me down, but then Blake came over and stopped them, and he drove me home." She paused. "I would've done it with him, for that, Stacey. I guess that does make me a whore." 

I didn't understand. She was talking to me like I was an adult, something I wanted, but suddenly I wanted nothing more than to be a stupid, naïve child. I didn't like this strange, adult world. "Carrigan, you're my sister and I love you. And you're making me really worried about you. Mom wants to throw you out. Please don't give her a reason to." 

She stared at me then, her green eyes still shining with tears. She really was beautiful. I knew I'd never look like that. 

She kicked off her shoes and crawled under her blanket, still fully dressed.. "Night, Stacey." 

"Night, Carrigan."

* * *

The next couple days passed, Carrigan on her best behavior. She did whatever my mother asked her and didn't talk back at all. But she was somewhat cold to our father. Angry at him for siding with Mom, I guess. And then Mom went to the store. 

This would be tricky to do. I hadn't counted on Carrigan being home. Not that she would tell on me, but I didn't want her to know what I was up to. 

Checking to make sure she was busy watching TV (soap operas; she loved them for some inane reason), I quietly crept upstairs and into the master bedroom. I didn't go in there much, hadn't since I'd stopped crawling in bed with them after having nightmares. It had probably been a couple months since I'd actually been in there at all. And I didn't have a clue where they kept anything. 

I looked at the clock. Mom had been gone fifteen minutes. She'd gone to Walmart, so she'd be at least an hour. That gave me some time. 

The closet first, I decided, pulling open the door. There were several storage boxes, each neatly labeled in my father's messy handwriting: Books, research papers, photographs, and several others. I pulled out the photographs from the bottom of the stack. 

Blowing the dust away I lifted the lid. Inside were a mountain of photo albums. The first one was from several years ago when we'd all gone to Disney World. I smiled at the memories. That had been fun. But it was no time to relive the past. I was on a mission. I went through the pictures quickly, trying not to spend too long on any one. Then I found them. 

Dad's high school yearbooks. He had four; three from _Garden Bridge High School,_ which was a local high school and I knew my father'd gone to it. And then one from _South Water High.__So, he spent three years going to school here, and his senior year somewhere else._ I checked the address. It was in South Carolina. I didn't know he'd ever lived in South Carolina. 

It was a thin book, there weren't a whole lot of students. I flipped to the seniors. There he was, Reed Morrow, his handsome face smiling shyly at the camera. My eyes scrolled down the page for Roberts, there was one, Jeanne Roberts. Pictured was an average looking girl with dark hair. No Anastacia. Then I checked the junior class, and again, there was one Roberts. And there she was, Anastacia Roberts, every bit as beautiful of Carrigan, the same girl in the photograph. She had a smile like Carrigan had said, like she was amused, not from happiness. I hadn't noticed that in the other photograph. I'd have to see it again. 

I flipped through to the endpaper. Few people had signed it, but I found what I was looking for, in large, loopy scroll in the back.

* * *

_To Reed who likes to read, _

I wish you health and happiness, and the fame you deserve. You need not worry about me, love, for I am a poor country girl who knows how to survive. I've survived for sixteen years, I'm sure I will make it through a few more. Are you angry at me, perhaps? I do not blame you. I suppose if I were you I would be angry at me, too. But you need not worry about me. And don't worry about Dearest Father, either, for he is at Death's doorstep. It is only a matter of time. 

Do not fret, and do not think of the Hell that is South Water. Move on and enjoy college and the many women I am sure will find you attractive. And then, one day, we will me again, lover, and on that day, well, I'll surprise you. 

Farewell, 

Anne who likes to swim and does not like to read

* * *

That was…_weird._ To say the least. Not what I had expected at all. It was signed Anne and not Anastacia, so it was possible it wasn't her, but my parents had called her Anne, that was what they knew her as. I was so confused. 

Daddy'd been angry with her. _I wonder what about._ I looked at the clock. It had almost been an hour. I'd wasted a lot of time trying to get the photograph box. I left the yearbook out and put everything else back, and carefully put everything back where I found it. Then I rushed to my room, hiding the yearbook under my mattress, lest Carrigan find it. Then Mom came home. 

_That was close._

I ran downstairs to help her. 

"Stacey," she called to me. "Go check the mail. I just saw the mailman out there." 

Wordless I went to check it. And that was when the letter came. 

It was pretty stationary, purple with fairies. Or faeries, as that spelling seems to be more popular. I don't know the difference. It was addressed to Carrigan Morrow, and it was from Lace Trelawny from South Water, South Carolina. 


End file.
